Why I AM
by ChaneD
Summary: Maybe this wasn't right. But maybe this wasn't wrong neither. I was tired of being alone and she was tired of being numb. *written in Damon's POV* this is my first TVD fanfic hope that it does the trick.
1. Prologue

**Disclaimer: I had nothing to do with the creation of these characters on the television series nor the books. I'm just using them for the moment. So please don't sue, and please don't take this story or ideas that are in here. Those are actually mine. XOXOXO**

**Written in Damon's POV**

**Prologue**

I know what pain feels like. The kind of pain that eats away from the inside out. The kind that won't allow for you to even turn over in your bed. I know that pain. That physical pain that leaks into your mentality. That makes you believe that you're going crazy. So you shut yourself off, try to make yourself as cold and numb as possible. But that kind of psychological tactic doesn't work on someone that feels their own body attack itself. You can't escape the obviousness of it, and those that really love you either convince themselves that they can not see the change or they blame you for being weak enough as to not fight it. I know those reactions; they are as familiar to me as my own hand. But I never came out and told anyone why this pain exist and therefore I was not faced with the pity that would have came along with a confession of ill health, the knowledge of death.

I had always been close to it. Had always known that it was coming and yet I was never aware of it coming so soon, or by whose hands that I may fall. Was it by fate or the porcelain hand that fled from my quarters to that of my brothers on nightly bases? Some my look upon me and ask why was I so accepting of Katherine. Why was I so enthralled in the fact that she had every intentions of making me like her? They would like to know why I was willing to throw away my soul for such a thing as vampirism. They would ask why I was so willing to be dead. And to them I would answer, it was because I didn't want to die.

In the autumn of 1863, I had found out that I was dying from a disease that had taken many lives before my own. It had taken my mother's and that of my uncle, had weakened my father for months before he had, miraculously, beaten it. I was diagnosis with cancer. The silent killer of my time. The Big C of this era. I had not told my brother, nor had he notice. And in the case of my father, he had figured it out for himself. He was more upset of the shame that it brought him, that his son was unfit to continue to fight in a losing war, then the fact that his first born son was on the brink of death.

He didn't want to look upon me, I had brought shame to him. One time too many, he would say, if he were here to answer. How dare I die without his permission. How dare I bring unto him another occasion of pity amongst his fellow man. It was as if I had planned, it in his eyes. Ever the prodigal son, I was.

I had only a few months left to live. This is what was told to me, before I was allowed leave from the militia. I had came home to Fell's Church, Virginia. Home to my brother and father. Home to my bed, where I was sure to spend the rest of my days fighting pain and weakness. Home to the place that my mother rested. Home to Katherine. Home to death, in more was than one.

*****this is my first TVD story and I hope that someone reads it and will review on it. Please if you read it tell me what you think*****

**THANKS, **

**ChaneD**


	2. Chapter 1

**Thank you to all that have read and that is reading and once again leave me a review and tell me what you think. **

**Disclaimer: I had nothing to do with the creation of these characters on the television series nor the books. I'm just using them for the moment. So please don't sue, and please don't take this story or ideas that are in here. Those are actually mine. XOXOXO**

*****  
**

**Chapter 1**

I had asked myself was it worth it live. Should I end it now? Throw myself into the fire before me and hope that it purified my soul. But there was no purifying me, I was destined for hell, and yet I had already known that. I had known it long before I ever swallowed the last drop of blood from a human. I had killed before, in war, I had taken a couple of lives. And even thought those lives were taken in a battle that was permitted by the law of society, was it not still a life. Did those souls that I released on the battlefield, somehow excluded me from hell? I didn't think so, I never saw the difference. And with that being said, I can confess that death never had much of an effect on me. I had damned myself along time ago. Whether, I had killed for my own survival, or that of my countries.

"Damon?" I heard my brother call to me. I was well aware that he had sat down on the side of me hours ago. Even with everything that I had put him through, he was still willing to be there for me. Suffice to say that Stefan was a better man than I was on my good days. He had probably taken this time of silence and reflected on this outcome and now he was prepared to move on and therefore help me do the same. Saint Stefan had found peace with Katherine a long time ago, and yet I could never allow for him to express such a feeling without a jilt or a dead body for him to cleanse from his front door. But as in his fashion he was willing to allow me one more chance. He probably thought that the toll of being a murderer for naught had begun to eat away at me. But I did not think of those that I had killed at this moment. In this moment I had thought of the brother that I had betrayed and the humanity that I had given up in return for, such a solemn, ending.

"Yes?" I answered him.

"Maybe you should get some rest? You've been here for hours."

"So have you."

"Alright then, maybe we need to get some rest. You have to be tired."

I looked over to him and I look into his eyes. And I knew that he would not gloat about such a thing as my failure, my foolishness. He wanted to take care of me and for some slighter of hopefulness that we could be as we once were, I wanted to let him. I arose from my seat and began to walk towards the stairs. I was aware that Stefan was behind me, probably thinking of the best way to tuck me into bed without taken away the last shred of manhood that I had left. I had placed my foot unto the first step, when something invaded my mind.

_No, no, no... She's not dead. She can't be dead. Please, God, please. Bring her back, bring her back. Please._

I fell to my knees and clutched my head. There was an intense pain that split through my skull.

"Damon!" Stefan yelled knelling by my side. I raise my head to look at him but something pulls my vision to the steps above me and then I see the soul of a witch, began to form.

"What are you doing here?" I asked her. She takes a step downward.

"Damon, who are you talking to?" Stefan asked.

"I have unfinished business, vampire." The specter answers and then she disappears.

"Damon?" Stefan says to me. I look over to him.

"Go and check on the little witch. Her grandmother has passed."

_**End of Chapter**_


	3. Chapter 2

**I wanna think all of those that have read and reviewed on this story and I am trying to churn this thing on out. **

*********Disclaimer: I had nothing to do with the creation of these characters on the television series nor the books. I'm just using them for the moment. So please don't sue, and please don't take this story or ideas that are in here. Those are actually mine. XOXOXO*****

**Chapter 2**

I watched her from a position where I was positive that she would find me, if she was to look up. We were in a cemetery, the same one that held my mother. The same one that was supposed to have held my grave, as well. My real grave, not the one that was made for Stephan and I after the shooting. I watched her kneeling beside her grandmother's grave, chanting words, praying as though this was going to bring her back. But I was positive that it wouldn't. I was also sure that this novice of a witch knew that as well.

Bonnie Bennett looked smaller than normal when she stood beside her grandmother's grave. Almost like she had gone inside her self, just for those small visits that she took to say her chants and place her flowers. Yes, I had followed her everyday and yes I had planned to continue to do as such. I was piqued by the soul of the deceased witch showing up to my home on the night that she passed. I wanted to know why she did so. But to no avail she had not returned. Almost as if she was a figment of my imagination.

The small witch had never seen me and yet I knew that she was aware that I was always there. And yet she hadn't said a word. Not to me or my brother, or even Elena. I wondered if she ever would. I wondered if she never spoke, because she was unsure of what was going to come out if she did. I had wondered who she blamed for the death of her beloved. Was it I, who was so desperate to open the tomb that I didn't care what had to happen to do so. Was it Stefan, whom, I was told, went into the tomb to save his woman and his brother? Was it Elena, who didn't even hesitate to go into that place with me? Or was it even herself, for she had requested that Shelia and herself work towards lifting the spell on the tomb, the same spell that exerted her grandmother, to the point of death. Whom did she hold at fault?

I watched as she rose from her knelling position from the grave and began to walk out of the cemetery. I had begun to follow her, as I always do. We had just about reached the gates of the grave hall, when she stopped. She turned around, and I, never the one to hide, stood there for her to see.

"Why do you keep coming here with me?" she asked silently. Just above a whisper, she knew that I caught it. I began to walk closer to her.

"I don't know." I answer truthfully, because honestly I didn't. Ghost found their way to your doorstep, never the other way around.

"Are you lonely?" She asked.

I thought about it for a moment. At this point I was already a feet from her. "Yes, as I have always been."

Her jaw began to tremble as she forces out her next words. "Do you think that you won't be, some time, in the future?"

"Why?"

"Because, I don't always want to feel this way."

I close the gap between us, with one step, and somehow my hands find their way into her hair. "Me either." I say to her. She looks up at me and smiles slightly. "You're being uncharacteristically sincere." She states.

"Well, even I get sick of my self sometimes." I tell her.

She chuckles briefly.

"Damon?" she says then pause and I wait for her to continue. "I don't want to be alone today."

"Me neither." I tell her and in one second, I envelope her into my arms and I take her to a place that we can be together without interruption.

**End of Chapter**

*****Please continue to read and please if you're reading leave a review, would like to know what ever body thinks. *****

Thanks to:

babyshan211

Sky_Samuelle


	4. Chapter 3

**Thank for reading. This is the next installment. I actually like this story. LOL. **

**Please leave feedback. **

**Disclaimer: I had nothing to do with the creation of these characters on the television series nor the books. I'm just using them for the moment. So please don't sue, and please don't take this story or ideas that are in here. Those are actually mine. XOXOXO**

**Chapter 3**

She looks around the room that I have brought her to. It was a small house, a cottage even, on the outside borders of town. I had brought this place a while back. It was someplace to rest my head on the times that I came to visit the Bennett line. I had done annual visits to make sure that my end of the deal was still in tact.

Bonnie had begun to walk around. She investigated the small living room, the connecting kitchen, the cramped bathroom, and the barely master bedroom. I had furnished the place in a modest way. I didn't need luxury to sleep. That was where most people got me wrong. I had every intentions of appearing the suave stranger, in order to obtain my victims, but when I was alone less was more.

She stopped upon my dinning table, where there were a pile of books. That was something that Stefan and I had in common, we were readers.

"I never pegged you for the book type." The novice witch states, lightly fingering a book.

"You're right, I'm much more of a meat head." I joked in return.

"You never pegged me for much of that either." She stated, taking a seat before the table. "You, Damon, always came off as a dick." She finished.

I was a little amused by this. So she wanted to play the game as a wise ass today. I could do that, this is where I excelled at.

"Oh, really? How so?"

"Well, you go in head first. You're unrelenting, forceful, always chasing the next climax." She explained.

"You forgot that I was a long stroker." I add, taking a seat across from her. I liked her analogy. Her surface based assumption of what I was. The personality that I possessed.

She began to laugh. "How could I have forgotten that?" she stated, sitting back in her chair.

"What are you doing?" I asked her. She looked my way. "Sitting here, with me, acting as if, I'm not who I am. As if I did not try to kill you. As if what happen to your grandmother wasn't slightly my fault." I had to know what she was thinking. Why she was here with me and not trying to kill me. All be it, pointless, but vigil, none the less.

She sat up in her chair, placed her elbows on the table and looked at me, intently. "I suppose that I should hate you. That I should've been spending this time learning some way to rid the world of your evil. I should blame you for the fact that my grams is dead. I should shun you for trying to kill me, that night. But where the hell would I find the strength to fight you.

"You, Damon, you who has single handedly caused a hundred and fifty years of pain and death and tears and blood. All for some sick obtuse notion of love. All for revenge. My God look at what you're capable of, and that's just the stuff that I know about. I would be crazy to try and fight you." She said all of this and continues to look at me.

"Not even a small fire?" I asked with a smirk.

"Why waste the energy, Damon? You've already gotten you comeuppance. Turn about was in fact fair play. You were made a fool of. Somewhere someone is laughing at you. Hell, maybe even Katherine herself." She answered.

"So you pity me?"

"Yes, as you have pity so many others. As you pity me. But above all, I feel for you. Because I know that you can never go back to the man that you were before her and I'm not sure that you would. I'm not sure that you were even happy with the man that you were before her."

"I wasn't. The only happiness that I've known, the only acceptance that was granted to me was given by her. And the bitch didn't even mean it."

"We should kill her." Bonnie stated loud and clear.

**End Chapter**


	5. Chapter 4

**Hello all, I just want to thank everyone for reading or putting this on their watch list or putting it in their faves, or commenting. I appreciate it and I thank you. And please if your reading tell me if you like it, hate it, can't stand it, anything. **

**Disclaimer:**** I had nothing to do with the creation of these characters on the television series nor the books. I'm just using them for the moment. So please don't sue, and please don't take this story or ideas that are in here. Those are actually mine. XOXOXO**

**Chapter 4**

She looked me dead in the eyes and watched me as closely as I watched her. _We should kill her. _She stated as if it was something to put on the grocery list. I had to wonder if I was prepared to kill Katherine. I didn't think that I was. I knew that physically I was capable of driving a stake through her. She had made me look like a fool. She had left me with a lot of questions that I needed answered. Who the hell else knew that she was alive and had not told me? I had the slight notion that I had been a running joke in many circles, for I was the vampire that spent one hundred and forty-five years trying to free a woman that was already free. My name itself was probably a cause for a couple of chuckles.

Could I kill Katherine? Yes. Was I ready emotionally to kill Katherine? No. There was something inside of me that clung to her. That clung to moments that we were alone and I thought that she was real. The moments when I thought that she loved me. I had search for that kind of love and acceptance that she had bestowed on me, and there was something in me that wanted to know if it meant anything.

"Could you do it?" Bonnie asked me, still looking into my eyes.

"I'm not sure. Is this why you're here? To convince me to kill Katherine?" I inquired, myself. She began to shake her head.

"No, Damon. It was just a thought. I haven't yet escalated to murder. But if given the chance and the motive I wouldn't hesitate to light her on fire." She said, laying back into her chair. I had to smile at this. I had watched this person in front of me. I had watched her for years, had studied her every step, and made sure that she was never broken nor bruised, all for the sake of a pact that was never fulfilled. This woman in front of me had developed into someone that had to think about murder all because of me. I wondered if she meant what she had said. Was _she _prepared to kill another, human or not?

I rise from my seat and began to put on my coat.

"Where are you going?" She said getting up as well. "I thought that we were going to do the "not being alone thing" together?"

"I have to go and get your car and something for you to eat. If someone sees your car and there's no you, then I'm pretty sure that someone will start getting worried. And you must be hungry; I haven't seen you eat lately." I explained. She began to nod. "You can read or explore. Look around. You might dig up some secrets. "I added with a smirk then walked out the door.

***

I was on my way back to the cottage in Bonnie's car. I had picked up some ingredients for a meal. I stared at the road before me and drummed my fingers on the steering wheel to a song that was playing lightly on the radio.

"What are you doing?" a voice asked from the back of the car. Surprised I swerved the car off of the road and stealthily came to a stop right before I hit a ditch. I turned and looked in the back of the car to see Shelia Bennett sitting casually behind me. "I asked you, what you were doing?" she said again.

"Why are you here, witch?" I ask her, venomously.

"I told you that I have unfinished business, as all ghost have." She answered. "What are you doing taking my grandbaby to your little shack in the woods. I told you to stay away, boy?"

"Firstly, don't call me a boy; I was there when the doctor smacked you on your little red ass. Secondly, I do what I want, and your grandbaby doesn't seem to have a problem with spending time in my little shack. And thirdly, what is your unfinished business?" I stated, noticing the roll of her eyes when I stated the ass slapping part.

"I have to make sure that she peaks. With the comet and the events that have occurred, she will ripen before us all and I must see to it." She answered.

"If you have so much to do, then why the hell did you die before your time?"

"I needed to be free of fear, free of death. I can't teach her how to walk into fire, if I'm afraid of being burnt." she replied. "You didn't answer my question, vampire."

"I don't know. She felt numb and I didn't want to be alone." I answered. "Why are you haunting me? Why aren't you with her now, while she's alone?"

"Because she will cling to the hope that I will stay with her forever, and I can not. I am going to use you Damon. For you are both a pawn and a king on this particular chess board. You will help me help her." The experienced witch stated looking upon me.

"How?" I asked her.

"Like this." She answered and then lunged at me. I watch in horror as she seeps into my body. I began to convulse and struggle as I fill every fragment of myself being torn into two. I let out a scream as I'm pushed deeper into my own mind and another presence locks me in.

_No! No! Get out of me! _ I scream from the corner of my mind. I hear a chuckle incase the mental walls that are locking me in.

_Don't worry, Damon. I only need you for a little while. _ I hear the witch state to me, inwardly. I can only watch as my body began to move. It turns to face the front of the car correctly. My arms turn on the vehicle and in a matter of seconds I am on the road, driving towards my shack in the woods, with the little witch inside.

**End Chapter**

**P.S. I love a good cliffhanger. **


	6. Chapter 5

**CHAPTER SIX**

I wasn't positive of when I had blacked out last night, but at some point I was sure that I had. But one thing was for certain, I was no longer in my cottage. In fact, I was pretty sure that I was at the boarding house and on top of that it seemed to be well into the after noon. I rise my head up from the crevice of the couch and look around.

"Oh, thank God!" I heard. I turned towards the voice to see a very disheveled Bonnie Bennett. She looked as though she just weathered a storm. Her hair was placed sloppily on top of her head and her eyes were almost blood red.

"What... what the hell happened?" I asked

All that I could remember was the ghost of a witch jumping into my body and driving off.

"I... I don't know. Last night you came back to the cottage and you hugged me." Bonnie started, still at my side.

"Hugged you?" I asked.

"Yes, it was the first thing that you did. Then you fixed me something to eat which was a little strange. Then when I was eating you just stared at me and then all of a sudden everything got woozy and you started speaking Latin." She said the language as if she was unsure of what it really was.

"Then?"

"Then I woke up at home. As soon as I got up I rushed over here to set your ass on fire. But Stefan stopped me and he said that you came in here and just fell on the couch and he hasn't been able to move you. He thought that you were dead." She explained.

I completely sat up and just examined her. "Are you... alright?" I asked.

"Well, at first I felt like I was going to kill you, but now that I've calmed down. I feel amazing. Like there is this ball of magic moving through my body."

_She will ripen before us all._

Is what the witch said. Maybe she had induced the change. Had done something to insure that she had peaked early. I wondered if this was the witch's purpose. I wondered if I was to see her again.

_I can not teach her to walk through fire, if I'm afraid to get burned._

That line indicated that there was in fact a fire to be walked through so the it seemed that I would be seeing that god damned ghost again.

"Damon, what did you do to me?" The newly ripened witch asked me with wide eyes.

"Yes, Damon what did you do." I heard from my brother, behind me.

I quickly rose and walked over to him.

"Did you see her?" I asked in almost a whisper.

"See who?" he answered giving me that sour look that I have grown accustomed to.

"That ghost of a witch, last night?"

"Damon, you came in here last night like a zombie. You didn't say anything, you walked right passed me and threw yourself on the couch. You didn't move, you were just still. I didn't know what to do until Bonnie came storming in here this morning about to treat you like a marshmallow and toast you."

I slowly stepped back from Stefan and looked over to the little witch, before I supernaturally made my why to my room.

I needed space. No I needed more than space I needed distance. I was violated and I didn't like it. Not one bit.


	7. Chapter 6

Confusion was not something that I neither liked nor appreciated. I kept asking myself why would Shelia was to ripen her granddaughter early.

_She needed protection and I couldn't trust you to do it. _

I heard from within my head.

I paused for a minute and thought,

**Am I going crazy?**

_No, Damon you are not crazy, however I question if you hadn't always been 3 miles past insanity._

The voice said again within my head.

"Shelia?" I asked, this time with my voice.

_Yes, Damon._

"Get out of my body!" I yelled to which my head was filled with laughter.

I heard a knock on the door. "What?" I asked. "Damon, what is going on with you?" Stefan asked walking into the room. I sighed heavily. "Nothing." I answered.

Stefan looked in to my eyes. "Damon, are you ok?"

"Do I look ok?" I asked monotonously

"No." my brother answered.

"Then why are you asking for?" I yelled wildly.

He slightly backed up.

_Why do you treat him like that? He loves you more than you ever know. _Shelia asked.

"Shut up! You don't know us." I continued to yell.

"Damon what is wrong with you?" Stefan asked seriously, walking up to me.

I looked at my brother with his crinkled forehead and his aged eyes. Physically he looked to be every bit the 17 that he claimed, but his eyes read one-hundred and sixty-two. You could tell that immortality was not something that agreed with him, and most of that was my fault.

"Stefan, she's inside my head." I stated.

"Who?" he asked confused.

"Shelia."

To that reply stepped back from me quickly and he began to look at everything in the room but me. His mouth opened and closed a couple of times. As if he wanted to say something, but could find the words. Then he walked up to me and placed his hands on my shoulder.

"We'll fix this, Damon. We'll find someone that can help you."

I jerked away from him.

_Isn't that sweet, Damon. Maybe you should take him up on the offer. _

"I am not crazy, she is there."

"Well, if she's there then what does she want?" Stefan asked looking a little defeated.

_To prepare you for something that's about to come._

I listened and then relayed the message.

"What is coming?" Stefan relied.

_Something that's going that's going to need all of you. Bonnie, the both of you, and even Elena. _

"She said that it's something that the whole gang is going to have to participate in Scooby." I answered. Then I turned around from Stefan who stood there thinking.

"Damn it, Shelia, could you be any more cryptive and when are you going to get out of my head?" I stated directly to Shelia.

_Soon, I have to talk to her Damon. And then I will be out of all of your way, but I still will be watching. _

**Oh, great. **I stated within my head mockingly, to which I was reward a sting-like sensation in my head. I flinched.

"Damn it, Shelia." I yelled.

I turned back around to see that Stefan had stopped standing in one spot looking dumb, to sitting on the edge of my bed. He looked up at me.

"Damon. I want to believe you, but you've pulled so much shit of the years. God, I don't want to even think that you would go so low as to punish Bonnie about this whole Katherine thing."

"Why would I do that?"

"Why do you do all of the things that you do? Maybe you want to find someone to blame, but even this is too out there for you. "

"Little brother, I am an asshole, ok, but I'm not that damn slimy." I interrupted him.

He started nodding his head.

"Yes you are." He stated and then e chuckled a little. I did the same.

"Ok, I am capable of pulling something like this, but you have to believe that this not a prank or a plight. She is there, little brother. "

"Ok, well Bonnie is in a spare room, sleep, so after she wakes up, we'll talk to her." He said.

I nodded, sitting down next to him.


End file.
